Sound card comparison, which is best?

[TNTrulez]

We have the Acustic Edge, the Audigy, the Santa Cruz, and some others. Which one do you think is the best consumer level card so far? I have heard that the Santa Cruz is pretty good but no having owned any of them, I couldn't say for sure which is better.

 

[Adul]

only owned the santa cruz. i have no desire to give it up.

btw there is some hotdeal on it where you can get it from compusa for 49.99

 

I had the AE like 6 months ago, then went to Game theater pro xp (wasnt loud enough), then audigy (movies sounded great, everything else was a$$) until it crapped out [gg creative], then i am with the best sound card i have ever used....:
Santa Cruz! If there were a better sound card out i would buy it.

 

[BFG10K]

I'm completely happy with my Creative SB128 PCI. It has outstanding sound quality and great drivers and the only way I'll ever give it up is if I decide to use more than two speakers.

 

[Rand]

Tech Report had a rather nice consumer sound card comparison awhile back.

 

[paralazarguer]

It's completey subjective. The audigy has EAX advanced HD and all EAX implementations are smoother and suffer from LESS dropouts than the competition (tom's hardware - DMX-audigy review) and some people say it's the best of all. I can definitley notice a difference between it and the C-media chip in this motherboard. Night and day. Some people swear by the turtle beach santa cruz and others still by other cards. Some cards sound best to some people. The driver issues that creative had in the past are just that. Their new drivers are quite good (some people have trouble but same goes for nvidia (inifite loop anyone) and there's no product that doesn't have trouble for some people including competing cards. The best thing to do is to listen. See if you know people with the different cards and decide which one is best for you.

 

[TNTrulez]

Originally posted by: Rand
Tech Report had a rather nice consumer sound card comparison awhile back.

Good link. Thanks

 

[TNTrulez]

From what the article says, the Audigy beats the rest of the consumer cards in MP3s, which is what I'm most interested in. Looks like I'm on my way to picking up an Audigy.

 

[cmdrdredd]

I really like my hercules gametheater Xp especially for the extra USb ports it provides and the MIDi ports with Optical and coax digital for my Home theater when I need to listen to Mp3. It also supports 6.1.

I also really like the fact that it has support for Hardware Mp3 playback.

 

[Stig]

Yamaha

 

[StattlichPassat]

I've got a SoundBlaster Live! value that I've had for two years- love it. I don't know why they don't offer it anymore, as on the OEM market, the SB 5.1 is a little much for most, as is an Audigy. There's nothing wrong with it and I wish they'd bring it back! Isn't the EMU10K1 chip a DSP that is never supposed to be obsolete? At any rate, if you have $60 to spend, check out an OEM Audigy bare card- I think that's the best you can buy right now. Otherwise, nothing wrong with picking up the card I have for 25 bucks off eBay. I have a feeling most aren't going to be able to tell a difference anyway!

 

[Pardus]

I have to agree with NightFlyerGTI, have a SoundBlaster Live Value! and i love it.

 

[Goi]

The SB Live! is the lowest common denominator of consumer soundcards, and provides pretty basic, decent sound for most computer speakers. However, the Live!'s ex-rival, the Vortex2 chip, already won it in terms of sound quality. The newer breed of sound cards such as the Santa Cruz, GTXP and AcousticEdge widen the gap even more. Featurewise, these cards are also pretty competitive, though Creative remains in the forefront of the feature list department. The Audigy line is a step up from the Live! sound quality wise, but its fake 24bit/96KHz moniker and claim is highly controversial and "creative" marketing.